Halt destruction of nature or suffer even worse pandemics, say world’s top scientists
“Rampant deforestation, uncontrolled
expansion of agriculture, intensive farming, mining and infrastructure
development, as well as the exploitation of wild species have created a
‘perfect storm’ for the spillover of diseases.”
The coronavirus
pandemic is likely to be followed by even more deadly and destructive disease
outbreaks unless their root cause – the rampant destruction of the natural
world – is rapidly halted, the world’s leading biodiversity experts have
warned.
“There is a single
species responsible for the Covid-19 pandemic – us,” they said. “Recent
pandemics are a direct consequence of human activity, particularly our global
financial and economic systems that prize economic growth at any cost. We have
a small window of opportunity, in overcoming the challenges of the current
crisis, to avoid sowing the seeds of future ones.”
Professors Josef
Settele, Sandra Díaz and Eduardo Brondizio led the most
comprehensive planetary health check ever undertaken, which was
published in 2019 by the Inter-governmental Science-Policy Platform on
Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). It concluded that human society
was in jeopardy from the accelerating decline of the Earth’s natural
life-support systems....
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/27/halt-destruction-nature-worse-pandemics-top-scientists